Hard at Work

Ed reminded me yesterday that I had not added any new material to this web-log for some time. Many of you might feel yourselves owed an apology. Please take a moment and consider how remarkably selfish that attitude is. My time is my own to spend as I please, and any writings of mine that appear on this web site ought to be considered a rare privilege. While I feel as hearty as a seventy-five year-old, there is no firm evidence but that I am mortal. So soak up the wisdom while you can.

All that aside, these past few weeks have been particularly busy for me. Now and then I enjoy setting for myself a difficult compositional challenge, and the most recent turned out to be one of the greatest of my career. In late January, I received an unexpected phone call from one Horace Bertelmann, director of the Greater New York Area Euphonium Ensemble, a 12-member group whose name is self-explanatory.

Their concerts are surprisingly well-attended

No Hope for the Future

I despise children. In all likelihood there are many, many others who feel precisely as I do on the subject but are too constrained by social mores to make the confession. Since I make my living defying the expectations and hopes of those around me, I am in a unique position to admit this fact.

How repulsive!

I do not know if children are inherently evil, although that is entirely possible. What I do know is that contemporary standard parenthood practice is woefully inadequate to the task of molding them into respectful and productive members of society. Without meaning to sound like a cantankerous old man, I have to say that television, video games, sugary drinks, superhero comics, and possibly those tasteless matching sheets and wallpaper with images of some pre-adolescent pop star on them have done nothing but produce a generation of hyperactive, shrill, and obnoxious brats who, among other things, simply will not let a man have five quiet minutes to lie on the floor and hear the opening to his next opera.

I think I know what the plot will be, though

Such was my experience last month as I spent the winter solstice and New Year's with my alleged relatives, the Thornby family. Ed clearly had good intentions in connecting me with them, just like he had good intentions when he threw out my collection of priceless and irreplaceable pawn shop receipts from the golden age of 1947-1961. However, good intentions do not a truly valuable service make. Despite their friendly exteriors and welcoming (gasp!) embraces, I was quick to notice some signs of trouble ahead:

1. David Thornby works as an entry level analyst at Merril Lynch.  Not only are they totally out of line with my socialist principles, but they once promised to sponsor a concert series featuring some of my pieces, only to pull out in a show of total cowardice when they discovered I was going to use live ammunition.
2. Phyllis owns a large collection of "relaxing" "new age" "music" and listens to it religiously each night from the hours of 10pm-11pm as a way of going to sleep.  She often neglects to turn it off.
3. Taggert and Jennyfer, ages five and seven respectively, subsist mainly on a diet of chocolate cake and coca-cola, and have invented a nefarious method of torture known as "cuddle attacks," which as often as not leave me at the point of nervous exhaustion.
4. The dog, Bruno, is six months old, and, as it was determined after he discovered my pair of Zellis, not entirely house trained.

And they were my favorite pair, too

As far as the fire is concerned however, I can take no responsibility. It is certainly true that Taggert did ask me if it was all right for him to throw his army men into the fireplace, and that I said it was. I imagine he was playing some sort of ridiculous game with them, and as far as I am concerned, the fewer toys he has to trouble the world with, the better.  How was I to know that they were painted with some sort of flammable substance that would spark flames on the Christmas tree and then the curtains?  I wasn't of course, and I can at least say that the living room was not a total loss, and that despite any secret hopes on my parts, the boy escaped unscathed -- though perhaps a little bit wiser for the wear.  I expect next year I will be free to practice my One-legged King Pigeon in peace.

A Salute to Forward Thinking

One drawback of achieving recognition as one of the old masters in your own time is that people often falsely assume that you are fully up-to-date with all the trends and ideas circulating in the contemporary musical scene.  The sad reality, of course, is that even though my mental faculties have not diminished one whit to this point, I am still far from clairvoyant.   A great deal of discourse about aesthetics and theory has moved onto the Internet and out of my easy reach.

Film Scoring

Yesterday morning, Ed was helping me sort through some old papers that we found in a compartment hidden behind a false brick panel in my study.  Apparently I've lived in the place so long, I'd forgotten all about it.

They're quire realistic

Insufferable Meddling

The very idea that a grown man can't be allowed to take some time off to be alone with nature is utterly preposterous!

Clearly a trespasser

Fall Weather

Autumn has once again arrived, and by happy coincidence my enforced (but unnecessary) bed rest ended yesterday.  If I had to stay recumbent for one more day I likely would have abandoned all pretense at good-humor and destroyed some of the various valuable knick-knacks I have lying around the place.

I can see why they say tiger is an aphrodisiac   

Ed has done his best to be helpful, but the poor man just couldn't figure out the right mix of tea leaves for my daily Himalayan 茶. Also he could never figure out which were my morning slippers and which were my evening slippers, even though there's a clear difference on the tread if you look carefully in the right light.

Early Music

That buffoon of a doctor at the VA hospital ordered me to stay in bed for a few days after I got home, so I haven't had much of a chance to get anything useful accomplished.  All I have to show for the past week is a set of short piano pieces written to explore a musical system based on algebraic quotient rings, and the results are far from ideal.

It seemed like it would work in principal

However, all this time off my feet has given me a chance to thumb through some old journals of mine, and I think it would be worthwhile to share some of the more interesting passages I find with the world at large.  Of course, if I ever happen to pass away -- which is by no means a foregone conclusion -- these writings will be available to biographers, but in the meantime, here is an entry from back in the seventies:

A Brief Side Note

In his last posting, Ed seemed to imply that I bit him when he tried to help me up.  That is exactly what I did.  The thought that I would need helping standing up from anyone is utterly preposterous, although the paramedics made it difficult for me to do otherwise.  My residency in this hospital is purely cautionary.

These things have multiple uses

In the Navy, You Can...

Spending the last few days at the VA Hospital has brought back some long-repressed memories of my military days.

Also repressed memories of bad modernist architecture

"What's that?"  you ask, in that obnoxious, shocked tone of voice I'm sure you use in such cases, "Roscoe Willis, masterful composer, humanitarian, and committed socialist, spent time in the Navy?"

Why, yes, of course I did.  I daresay I'm even proud of it.  (Excellent guess about it being the Navy, by the way.  The Army wound up with Sam Barber, much to their disappointment, I'm sure.)  After all, this was during the Second World War, when for one brief moment, all of us, regardless of political background, were united in the common cause of killing Nazis.  I did my part by writing some music designed to increase our boys' enthusiasm for said killing.  My oratorio "Let Freedom Ring," while perhaps not up to the level of some of my later masterpieces, received a number of stirring performances, including one on the deck of the USS Yorktown accompanied by the Marine Band and several rounds of anti-aircraft fire when a Japanese Kamikaze attempted to interrupt the concert.

Luckily I decided not to wear my good tuxedo

Minor Fall, Everything OK

I figured news of this would probably get out sooner or later, so I'll go ahead and let everyone know that Roscoe is just fine; this evening he tripped over a five-pound weight he'd left lying by the bed and took a nasty little fall.

These things can be deadly

Fortunately I came by about a half hour later on my way back from the New York Public Library, where I often spend my day when I've got research to do for an article, and sometimes when I don't. I tried to help him up, but he seemed a bit delirious, so I decided just to go ahead and call 911. He didn't suffer any serious injuries and is resting for a day before he goes back home. Meanwhile I've been treated for some shallow bite wounds in my calf and ankles, but likewise it appears that I'll be fine.

In fact, I think I saw him writing something down for the blog, so hopefully we won't go too long without another Roscoe Willis gem. Meanwhile, it might be time to get him something to press to get help if this happens again.

Can't remember what the thing is called, though

On Setting Texts

Recently, as I have been working on my latest piece, a Biblical oratorio for unmixed voices and four antiphonal Balinese Gamelan ensembles (the provisional title is Oombayahamanasqotsi, which is a composite word I derived from several native languages of the aforementioned island -- the meaning of which I will leave for any competent linguist to decipher), I have been forced to grapple with one of music's most challenging elements: text-setting.

Simply writing music to fit a text is fairly trivial, of course, but I expect more of myself than a mere illustration or accompaniment to the words of some other individual -- in this case, King David, or as biblical historians now generally acknowledge, some underpaid hack that was forced to ghostwrite psalms for him while he carried on with vulnerable foreign immigrants' women.

Greetings, Fellow Truth-Seekers

I imagine a few of you might be somewhat surprised to see my writing posted here on the Internet, or "World Wide Web," as some of you apparently call it; let me assure you, first and foremost, that it is in fact I, Roscoe Willis, legendary composer, theorist, lecturer, teacher, guru of various eastern philosophies, and personal fitness expert, that is writing this article.  About six months ago, I happened to meet a strapping young musicologist and long-time admirer by the name of Edward MacMillan, who was so nice as to drop by my East Village loft for a cup of Himalayan Tea and an interview for Contemporary Sounds.

The Loft